BP and Royal Dutch Shell have today formed a consortium with various other energy companies to develop a blockchain-backed trading platform for commodities.

Expected to launch by the end of 2018 the platform will significantly help cut costs in oil trading and streamline various aspects of the industry including the replacement of paper contracts. Swiss based commodity trading firm Mercuria also joined today has long been an advocate of paperless contracts.

Other members of the consortium include ABN Amro, Norwegian oil firm Statoil, Koch Supply & Trading, trading house Gunvor, ING and Societe Generale.

“I am very excited about this initiative,” said Anthony van Vliet, ING’s Global Head of Trade and Commodity Finance, “Marquee brands and competitors in the energy, trade and banking industry sharing one vision gives us a great opportunity to transform processing in the energy trade commodity sector”

In a statement, the consortium expressed a desire to see this form of trading replace traditional methods: “Over time, the new venture intends to lead the migration of all forms of energy transaction data to the blockchain, improving data quality, further strengthening security and increasing the speed of settlements industry-wide, while reducing the cost for industry participants.”

The new venture is seeking regulatory approvals and would be run as an independent entity, the consortium said in a statement.

Other companies trying to revolutionise the energy sector with Blockchain technology are Grid+ which has so far raised 38,000 Ether and PowderLedger whose ICO has not ended raising $13 million dollars.

With increased transparency and independence from central government blockchain technologies are slated to revolutionise the energy industry for both consumers and producers.

In January, IBM and Samsung unveiled an early platform for controlling connected devices based on a blockchain concept called ADEPT. This platform uses software developed on the Ethereum blockchain that authenticates “smart contracts” that represent micro-transactions between appliances within a home to enable them to react autonomously and instantaneously to varying conditions.

Israeli Blockchain firm Lendoit welcomes two new experts on to its advisory board.

High profile advisors Eddy Travia & Richard Titus have joined the advisory board of Lendoit, an Israeli-based financial firm that is using blockchain technology to revolutionise the peer-to-peer lending industry.

Travia, a key figure in the blockchain space since 2013, co-founder of SeedCoin and blockchain Space, and current CEO of investment firm Coinsilium brings a wealth of experience to the project.

With an impressive portfolio that already includes RSK, Factom, CoinDash and SatoshiPay. Travia was also nominated among the top 3 ‘Most Influential Investors of the Year’ at Blockchain Awards 2014 and has been a major influence in the space ever since.

Titus is currently the managing partner at ARK ICO Advisors, a Singapore based firm advising ICO projects all over the world including AdEx, Pillar & Hive. he brings over 20 years of technology, scaling and development experience to the project.

Having nurtured over 15 successful initial coin offerings the two new additions to the Lendoit advisory board will help pave the the firm’s success in the lucrative P2P industry.

Utilizing the Ethereum blockchain, Lendoit is a decentralised peer-to-peer lending platform that brings lenders and borrowers together globally using Smart Contracts on the blockchain to ensure transparency, trust, reduced risk and circumvent intermediaries.

Borrowers are able to download the Lendoit app and request a loan which is then auctioned to verified lenders on the platform, this provides borrowers with the ability to browse bids and accept the best loan rates to suit their circumstances.

Despite it not launching until next year Lendoit has already created strong ties with governments and corporations one of Israel’s biggest investment firms Migdal Investment Banking. Established in 1965 and part of Migdal Capital Markets Group, it currently manages assets valued at $9 billion for thousands of clients in the Israeli private, business and public sectors.

Compared to other P2P lending platforms on the market such as ETHlend and Salt, Lendoit offers a competitive advantage in various areas such as decentralised intermediate, interest auctions, and compensation funds.

Lendoit so far have also partnered with YETAX, Smartech, WHISP R&D, The Hive Project and Wings.

Dylan Sharkey, former head of sales at Linkedin has left the networking platform to join Blockchain startup IUNGO Network as a senior advisor. With his support the startup aims to not only disrupt the global ISP market but also unify it with the latest technology.

IUNGO is working on an open source blockchain solution that enables anyone to consume and contribute to a network of global wifi networks. For end users this means simple, reliable and fast internet access anywhere and for locals it opens up new avenues to monetize their excess internet bandwidth.

Impressed by the startups growing portfolio of successfully executed ventures and strong management Team Dylan felt he could bring a lot to the project’s scaling and execution goals. Through his experience in managing a team of over 100 employees at LinkedIn, before the company’s IPO back in 2011 he is hailed as one of the key players in taking the firm’s startup growth and turning it into the powerhouse it is today.

On the one hand IUNGO hopes to tap into the growing number of nomads, travelers, vloggers, freelance workers who have significant problems accessing WIFI outside of their home while on the go whilst on the other opening on the ability for local residents to rent any excess bandwidth they have to earn some extra money.

“Dylan joins with invaluable experience of contributing to the stellar growth of LinkedIn when it was still a fast growing startup before the successful IPO in 2011”, said IUNGO Network CEO Ričardas Bernotavičius.

In doing so IUNGO is aiming to become a global ISP provider that is quite literally powered by its community of users.

IUNGO is a community based distributed wireless internet service provider. Through their blockchain technology software and hardware they would like to bootstrap communities where people take on responsibilities and benefit from various rewards. Members can also contribute to the network by installing public wi-fi access points in their premises.

The company aims to use existing local internet infrastructure to provide the bandwidth and overlay its own access layer to enable unified end-user identification, authentication and billing systems making it possible for users to rent bandwidth and hire it seamlessly on the Ethereum network.

IUNGO is a globally distributed wireless internet service provider built with the help of a worldwide community. They are Bootstrapping a community where everyone can assume responsibilities and benefit from the associated rewards for running parts of the service delivery infrastructure. Members can contribute by installing Public Wi-Fi access points on their premises and/or running parts of the service infrastructure.

After a laborious nine-week search Uber’s management board has voted to appoint crypto-friendly Dara Khosrowshahi as their new chief executive – a potential win for Bitcoin Ethereum.

Under Dara’s 12 year run, Expedia was one of the first major organisations to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment (back in 2014) and subsequently legitimising it. So much so that both Microsoft and Dell followed suit shortly after. Dara is also a personal investor in Bitcoin startup 21 inc and has been an influential promoter of blockchain technology and its uses in real world projects.

With Bitcoin dominating the early days it made sense for Expedia to start accepting the cryptocurrency, however three years down the line it would seem Ethereum would be a better all round solution.

Bitcoin has also encountered a number of issues of late, many of which have stemmed from its slow confirmation times and increased transaction fee’s. With neither of these issues being appropriately addressed it is impossible to use this currency in any time critical use cases. Ethereum however with its lightening fast conformations (which are soon to get even faster) and low transaction fees would be a well equipped contender. It only takes around 15 seconds for a transaction to be confirmed on the Ethereum network making it easy to pay as you pop out of the cab, as opposed to Bitcoin which would require you to… well we’re not quite sure how that would work.

Rumours around Uber accepting cryptocurrencies have long circulated but until now they been nothing more than internet chatter, with Dara’s appointment however it may well become a reality. These are exciting times for the cryptosphere.

Atlanta-based Storj Labs announced today it has partnered with popular open source FTP client FileZilla to bring drag and drop file uploading to the masses.

FileZilla is one of the most popular FTP clients rocking around 100 million downloads per year, lightyears away from its high school project foundations.

Over the last couple of months Storj’s future looked far from bright with a prominent member of the team leaving the company, but in a recent blog post the firm made changes to the executive team which settled investors. Amidst the internal storm, the firm have quietly been developing a highly requested feature to bring drag and drop uploads to users, the partnership with FileZilla opens the distributed cloud storage that to an additional 15 million monthly users.

The feature is currently still in BETA testing but interested users can join the Storj community chat https://community.storj.io/ for access to the group.

Fancy a long invigorating soak?

Handmade ethical cosmetics retailer Lush has recently started accepting Bitcoin as a method of payment for online shoppers.

The retailer operates around 1,000 physical stores across 49 countries worldwide and has suggested its online adoption will likely influence its in store Bitcoin rollout.

Lush said in a statement that Bitcoin was introduced as part of their “wider strategy to delve into the Blockchain community and provide an ethical viewpoint on its possibilities”.

The firm claims that it would allow them to create more ways of working with a wider range of suppliers, some of whom are from developing countries. Providing an alternative method in these regions will open up new new markets and make transactions more transparent with little to no exchange rates or fees.

The Bitpay ecommerce solution has been utilised and will allow the platform to handle customers who wish to pay with Bitcoin.

Lush is headquartered in Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom. The company was founded by Mark Constantine, a trichologist and Liz Weir.

Lush is expected to make $1 billion in global sales by 2017.

So whether you would like to treat yourself to a long relaxing soak or just smell like a million bucks with Bitcoin, grab yourself one of the many awesome sounding bath bombs from: https://uk.lush.com/products/bath

German state-owned development bank KfW has for the first time confirmed its use of Blockchain technology to improve transparency across its budgetary funds.

The bank is a running a pilot project in the African region on behalf of the The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) who will utilise Blockchain technology for greater transparency and auditing purposes.

The use of blockchain technology will allow the provider to create a fully auditable paper trail showing detailed plans of the work carried out, procurement, contracts, tenders and releasing funds for the project.

At this stage it does not appear that the bank is utilizing any of the more prominent open-source Blockchain technologies such as Ethereum and according to the press release have instead partnered with TruBudget, an independent software house who have developed their own blockchain implementation.

At this stage we have been unable to verify TruBudget’s internally developed blockchain (which somewhat defeats the purpose of transparency and openness).

The project hopes that the new technology will benefit the common good with schools, hospitals and other organisations receiving allocated funds in a transparent auditable manner as opposed to current systems that can lead to misuse, misallocation and terrorist funding.